1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to embedded systems, and more particularly, to secured data transfer in embedded systems.
2. Background
In many cases an embedded system is deployed in the field and forgotten. Meanwhile technology evolves and changes around the deployed system. Older deployed systems have serial interfaces to gain access to the device and information it contains. As the Internet has become prevalent, users wish to access their devices without having to go personally to the device and plug in a computer to download data. Consequently, a demand arose to Internet enable the older devices by creating products that have a serial port on one end and an Ethernet port on the other end, which can accept the data from the device and send the data over the Internet. This is advantageous because it eliminates the need to do costly replacements for the device.
Embedded systems today can be connected to computer networks (for example, the Internet) and to legacy devices. These embedded systems allow connectivity with various equipment, legacy as well as state of the art. For example, an embedded system allows network/Internet connectivity to vending machines, refrigerators, utility meters, HVAC systems, and home entertainment systems.
Now that the Internet has been around for awhile, there are devices that are Internet enabled and are being used in the field. Just as the serial devices had limited resources and could not be upgraded easily, the older Internet devices also have limited resources and can not be upgraded cost effectively. The Internet has grown and with it security concerns have grown tremendously. There is now a need to upgrade Internet enabled embedded systems to include security capabilities such as encryption. However, the firmware on the devices cannot be upgraded because the processors in these embedded systems are underpowered and there are insufficient resources to run new and complex encryption software. Therefore there is a need for a low cost method for converting data from a device to a secure data stream.